The VIRMOS project

The Franco-Italian VIRMOS project has delivered the VIMOS spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope (ESO-VLT). VIMOS is a VIsible imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph with outstanding multiplex capabilities: with 10 arcsec slits, spectra can be taken of 600 objects simultaneously. In integral field mode, a 6400-fibre Integral Field Unit (IFU) provides spectroscopy for all objects covering a 54x54 arcsec² area. VIMOS therefore provides unsurpassed efficiency for large surveys.

The VIRMOS project consists of:

Construction of VIMOS, and a Mask Manufacturing Unit for the ESO-VLT.

The VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS), a comprehensive imaging and redshift survey of the deep universe based on more than 150,000 redshifts in four 4 sq.-degree fields. The survey is on-going.

And the R in VIRMOS was standing for its initially planned capabilities in the Near InfraRed, NIRMOS, which has been drop out by ESO and Virmos consortium.

	2008, January 30th Letter in Nature A test of the nature of cosmic acceleration using galaxy redshift distorsions Press releases: ESO, CNRS-INSU, INAF.
	2007, February First Epoch VVDS Redshifts and Spectra Release
	2005, September 21st Letter in Nature A large population of galaxies discoved 9 to 12 billion years back in the life of the Universe Press releases: ESO, CNRS-INSU, INAF, LAM/OAMP.
	2005, May Public Release of VIPGI
	2005, April Example of VIMOS-IFU observations (pdf file)
	2005, March First results from the VVDS The messenger no 119, March 2005, p30-35 (ps file)
	2004, March The Chandra Deep Field Survey VIMOS redshifts are public, astro-ph/0403628, under Cencos)
	2003, P71 VIMOS offered to the community for P71 April-September 2003 (see ESO call)
	2003, VIMOS User's Manual - V1 (pdf file)
	2002, 17/09 - 01/10, VIMOS successfull 4-quadrants commissioning 1001 objects at once! I(AB)=24 150 high-resolution spectra (R=4000) I(AB)=22.5
	2002, Vimos in the Media (last update 07.06.2002)
	2002, 26/02-08/03 VIMOS commissioning period (last update 12.03.2002) Successfull VIMOS FIRST LIGHT; IMAGING and MOS, IFU SPECTROSCOPY
	2002, February VIMOS mounted at Nasmyth B focus of MELIPAL (last update 04.03.2002)
	2002, JanuaryVIMOS reintegration activity in Paranal (last update 31.01.2002)
	2001, December 21, VIMOS boxes arrived in Paranal
	2001, December 10, 2pm VIMOS leaves OHP for Paranal
	2000, August MMU operational at Paranal
	2000, May 22 VIMOS-IFU complete
	2000, May 12 VIMOS technical first light